


bewitched

by trilliananders



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:27:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trilliananders/pseuds/trilliananders
Summary: the three times your destiny had brought you before the white wolf, geralt of rivia.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Reader
Comments: 5
Kudos: 127





	1. bewitched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there’s a curse on your kingdom and as the king’s mage it’s your duty to break it. but only when the curse seems to befall you do you call for help. a man you’d seen once in your youth. a witcher.

It was slow, moving through the foggy moor. The dew not yet settled. The sound of the spectre cutting through the grass could be heard if you listen, but the poor victim was not listening hard enough. A man who’d been travelling for days, escaping to the next village over for fear of prosecution. His hands were stained with blood for the woman he loved, and he accidentally killed. The man’s guilt was feasting on his belly, rum and whiskey he’d been trying to burn it away with did nothing more than stir the bile. 

Vomit stained his boots, upchucking again, dry heaving by the side of the road. He gagged, sipping water from his hide, he persevered on. Through the fog and tall grass he could see his destination. The village was a good size for him to disappear into, in a dip of land behind a mighty castle, large sea rock behind, waves crashing upon the cliff in steady beats. It was lively enough to have an open pub. A place to further drown his sorrows. 

A scratch. That’s all it takes. Deep and unseen. The scratch that leads into madness. His guilt the trail of breadcrumbs leading the spectre to its feast. He stumbles into the warm stone building, stragglers and early morning travellers dipping into their vices once more before starting their day, those who’ve not rested since the previous evening. 

A stumble and fall into the bench, his eyes unfocused. Sweat pooling on his brow as he replayed his crime. Over and over until the slosh put in front of him wasn’t enough to drown. He swallowed his guilt, coins tossed on the table and asked for a room. Sleep his sorrows away until they no longer felt so raw. 

But it did nothing to quell the festering wound left by the spectre, the wound he didn’t know existed. The spectre stayed in the shadows, enjoying the meal it had been given. The guilt filled it’s belly for the first time in ages. But it wasn’t enough. The spectre was patient. This wound would fester more until it consumed the man’s body, until he was empty in madness or until he ended his life. And it would be fed. After, it could sense the delicious trail of guilt and sorrow in this village, it would feed again. The shadow demon grew satisfied in that it would no longer feel the acid gnaw of hunger. 

A place destined for madness. 

Years passed and those who did not live and die in this village never stayed for long. Some stories would say it cursed. People would grow mad, men and women slitting their throats in the street. Hanging themselves in the gallows. Screaming and becoming belligerent. Locked away for the rest of their lives. Holy men dared not step foot on the plagued ground. And the king grew sick with it. The disgrace handed down to him from generations before. The blame put on a mad King, his Great-Great-Grandfather now long dead, buried in the crypt below his feet. 

With three wives dead, a fourth with a child on the way, hopeful for a son. He buried himself into resentment for the life he’d been given. Ungrateful for the fortune and wealth. Ungrateful for the ease in which he was able to live. 

That’s what you resented him for. 

You’d been given away as soon as your parents realized you had the gift. Trained and tasked with becoming the mage you were today. A king’s mage. The Cursed King’s mage. You’d seen this lineage’s descent into madness and were expected to stop it. You lurked in the shadows of his life, willfully standing by as wife after wife failed to produce him a son, the curse of the town pulling them into madness. 

The first threw herself from a tower. The second put rocks in her pockets and walked her and her newborn daughter into the sea. The third was locked away in the asylum, screaming until her throat bleeds. The King, unsatisfied with his brood, took on a fourth wife. Maybe this time she’ll provide him a true heir. 

But in all this, you felt, maybe you were the ungrateful one. You were given whatever you wanted, whatever resource you could possibly need or want. And you didn’t even have to fetch them yourself, a courier would pluck your herb and slaughter your animals. Your hands, shaking as they may be in grief for your position, no longer have the dirt and scars from your youth. 

“You’re a beauty.” He’d mused. Your old King. He’d sought for you, the talent you’d possessed when you’d felt yourself still a girl. You were naive then, unknown to you the curse he brought on his back and lay at your feet. The dance in court, a seduction to your new position. Whether it was for you or him there was no clear answer. You knew, as your master had taught you, that he would never see you as more than a pretty ornament. A tool for his mastery. 

It was better than digging up radishes and eating half cooked potatoes in your family’s shed. You wouldn’t care to wonder what they are doing now. Your parents and sisters are most likely older, more gray and more dead. A lineage you know not if it was passed on, but you weren’t of them anymore. Not for nearly half a century. 

He was fat, your king, stuffing his sorrows down with roast pork and wine, blind with it. You mused if he could even perform at all let alone produce an heir on his part. His pretty bride, sold to him by her own family, a noble’s daughter who was afraid, very afraid. 

“Will I be cursed?” She asked, made aware of her pregnancy, the seed having taken root in her belly like the beginning of her end. A death sentence created by rumor. “When my babe is born, would I sooner throw myself into a pyre than try to produce again?” Her eyes dazed, wide, and unblinking. 

You were meant to console her, you assumed. Tell her what she wanted to hear, that she wouldn’t fall into the same madness that had taken every Queen before her. 

“Madness only takes you if you let it.” A small vial for the health and well being of her baby. “Persevere and keep yourself strong.” That’s all you could give. 

You’d come here softer than you should, calloused from your training, but training and real world experience were very different. The first time the old King had come to you in ramblings and despair you’d given him something to sleep, you tried to find the source of his pain like he’d instructed, but he’d soon fell. Locked away in the stone walls of this castle until the day he’d passed, his son taking the throne hastily after and finding a proper bride who quickly sired him a son. Your current King. The one who took his throne only after his Father was slipped into madness like a dream in the night. Swift and abrupt, unending nightmare of a dream. 

He’d hung himself in the main hall. 

His son was a child then, twelve when he’d taken the throne. You’d served a boy who’d barely found his own cock before he was giving you instruction. Pompous and confident in the wake of his Father’s death, the boy seemed so sure he would not meet the same fate. But now as his beard turned gray without an heir he claimed he was given a headier curse. 

“Is there anything you could do to guarantee me a son?” His face half lit by the candles in your room, red and puckered with age. 

“There is nothing guaranteed with magic.” You state and wrap your gown further across your body, the King having interrupted your bath, gown sticking to your legs. “I’ve done everything I’ve known to try to give you a son, everything ethically possible.” His mouth stank of rot. Spitting, snarling, hair pulling,

“Well try something unethical then or it shall next be your neck hanging from my gallows.” 

It was hard to be grateful for this life, but swallowed down by the guilt of others suffering. Those you could see without food or drink, empty bellies in his Kingdom he cared not about more than his own life. 

There was a way, but it was never something you’d expected to be pushed to do. It seemed madness had already taken root in him, or perhaps it was you for you were not sure who was more mad for this act. Him requesting it or you following through. 

It made you sick, but it was not something you could show. And when he asked it done you appeased him. The memory of the sweat and crying, your fingers aching with it. The unrest afterward. 

The village, thick with mud from the last rain, smelled of shit. You thought about all of the other mages that were gifted with you, their gilded cages in high towers above prosperous cities. You’d picked the short straw. Or perhaps you’d been the short straw that your old King picked himself. 

Winter was approaching, snow would soon lay thick on the ground, so you had to move quickly or else you’d never get a moment of peace until well after the birth of the new prince. Your fingers found the precarious rock’s surface. A deep crawl belly to salty rock to make your way into the sunken cave, the ocean spraying against your side, soaking you to your slip as you made entrance. 

A wave and the fire roared to life, illuminating your place of escape. 

You’d found it in a dream, leftovers from the mage before you, burned on a pyre for bringing this curse upon the village. The curse upon her king. But you knew it wasn’t a curse, you’d known that for a while now. It was your purpose to identify the source of the curse, but you had. It was not something you knew how to fight. 

The beast was uncommon, a whisper heard in the shadows, a task only a Witcher could take on with hope to survive. The last Witcher that had stumbled upon your town had gone mad in his own right, succumbed faster than any before him and threw himself into the sea. 

That seemed like a lifetime ago. 

The cave was hot with the fire, clothes discarded, you kneel at the foot of the fire. Seeking, in fear for your own life now, the guilt of what you’d just done was enough to take root deep in your belly and rip you apart. You had to find another Witcher. And soon. 

You drift into a memory. Just a girl, well before you knew what you would soon become. Your hands, clean, reverting to calloused and thick with dirt. You hadn’t had your first blood, your breasts mere buds, new and tender, you were back on your family’s farm. 

You saw him there for the first time. The man they called the White Wolf. He threw a creature at the foot of a man’s hearth. An exchange of coins, your eyes looking up to meet his; gold. You felt bewitched by them. A wash of familiarity... You’d been waiting near his horse, a gut feeling you couldn’t resolve. He’d paused, you were sure looking down at your dirty face and hands. An empty belly. A moment of eye contact while you waited for him to speak, but he didn’t. He’d slipped you a coin, pulled from his pocket and into your grubby little hands. One coin. Before his back turned and he rode his horse out of the village and far away from you. 

You felt it, beneath your fingertips. Smooth and cold. You marveled at how men would kill for this shiny piece of metal, given no more worth than what they themselves give to it. 

When you’re pulled back to your present it was there, between your thumb and forefinger, the only difference being fifty years. But the world was vast. It would take a certain orchestration of events to get your Witcher here. It would be your paranoia maybe, or the fact that the spectre knew what you were doing, but you could see the shadows shift out of the corners of your eyes. 

The Witcher needed to get here fast, the Hym seemed to have locked it’s sights on you. 

…

The Witcher heard tales of a beast, coin for another, and another. He’d never had good enough fortune for money such as this. Every village he went to seemed to have a story for another, and another. On and on until the realization. A clear path on a map leading him to an unknown destination. He wondered who’d orchestrated this. You could sense it from your sanctuary. 

The wonder of the plan. The hope that it would be a lost love. You cared not for who he loved but only wished he would quicken his feet. The paranoia grew by the day. The fear buried in your gut and sickness that washed over you as the Hym suckled at the guilt, feeding it’s belly on your mistakes. 

A trail of breadcrumbs stained the bodies of creatures you’d placed into his path. Bodies slewn and dispatched for thankful villages and the satisfaction of a job well done. It had been months before you saw him cross the threshold of your castle. The paranoia and fear growing in bile in your belly. You weren’t sure he was even real until your King called an audience with him. 

The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia. He stepped into your throne room and there was a primal feeling in your gut. You’d brought him here, to you. The Hym scratching at your back. You knew your King would seek any cure to save his life that he could, even if it wasn’t actually his life that was in danger. 

You could imagine the spectre’s claws in your back as your King began to speak. 

“I’ve heard tales of you, Witcher.” Your King’s voice, sure and booming for respect. “The White Wolf.” You watched Geralt, expressionless, almost bored. “I have a task for you Witcher.” You saw those gold eyes shift from him, a pull towards you that you’ve created. A raised eyebrow. “My family has been cursed for nearly a century now.” He stood from his throne, stepping towards the man. “My useless mage has not found a resolve for said curse,” His eyes drift to you as well as your King’s. You willfully show no response. Your King scoffs, “I’m hoping to employ you for the cause of saving my kingdom.” More to save himself. 

The Witcher looks to you, the familiarity on his features, the same familiarity you felt when you’d met him as a child. You could see the gears of his mind turning. He turned his gaze from you slowly as your King continued. 

“We’ve been under this curse, turned my family, my citizens into madness.” He says, “With not a clue as to the cause. If you listen you can hear the screams from the mad in the asylum upon entrance. If any being born of magic can break this curse, it would be you Witcher.”

Like poison in your veins, black and thick, you dipped down into that madness. Sweat on your brow, sorrow and rough cries in the night. It’s how he found you. 

“How long have you known of this Hym?” His voice gruff, deep. You could see in the mirror your sunken eyes and vacant expression. A pallor of death. 

“Long enough to be a fool to be taken by it.” You breathe, dampening a cloth to place on your neck. He leaned against the wall by your door, reflected in your mirror. 

“Were you the one laying beasts in my path to lead me here?” Those eyes, focused and calculating, sent a chill down your spine as you turned to him. 

“How else would I have acquired a Witcher?” His eyes focused on the shifting shadow. A pass of the spectre hiding behind you.

“What is your guilt?” He asked, hands clenched tightly by his sides. You swallow roughly, the words not wanting to peel from your throat. 

“To be fair,” You bemoan, “I deserve death.” A hand braced on the table. “It feeds on the despair of the guilty and has served its cause.” You can’t sink down into it, the drowning. 

“Killing.” He states. You shake your head, swallowing roughly. 

“Saving.” He circles the room, stepping close to the shadow, the spectre moving out of his way. “Brutal men... rapists and murderers. Women who drown their children based on their sex.” Your heart picks up speed as he settles in front of you, “It deserves to die with me.” 

“So you would let it take you?” His eyes looked through you, burying themselves into your thoughts. 

“I deserve this madness.” A hand placed over your belly to steady yourself, “I’ve given the King what he wants at the cost of my own conscience.” You had to admire the Witcher for his poker face. Not many men would not show emotion when you admit to a child sacrifice. The give and take of magic a cruel fate for the King’s needs. It felt justified and left you craving his disappointment, his ire. But it hadn’t been given. 

“Slaying a Hym isn’t easy.” You could feel the spectre, the emotions it felt at the cost of the proximity to the Witcher, but departing a Hym from its meal was a feat on its own. 

“You’re Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf,” you muse, “If anyone can do it, you can.” You see him swallow, eyes focusing in on yours. Close enough that you can feel his breath. 

“We’ll have to go somewhere a little more private for that, its lair will be the place tied to your guilt. We have to go there.” The sorrow, the lust for death, a sweet release from this ebbing guilt. You could almost taste it.

Your shadow shifted and he could see the horns. A demon to be exorcised. 

He followed you to the cliffs, trusting your footing to be true as you climbed down into them, sliding your belly against the wall and watching as he held his sword aloft to fit through the small space into the cavern aglow by fire. 

“I’m going to need more light than this.” His eyes focused on the damp walls and dim glow. A log pulled from the fire. He lit the torches in the corners of the room, a deep dark hole that led further into the cave systems beneath the city forgotten, his back to it while he faced you. “I need you to focus on something, anything else but the guilt… preferably something pleasant.” He steps towards you, “It’s going to come out of hiding and what you will feel will be intense, whatever you do, don’t succumb.” A vial, procured from his pocket and quickly drank, eyes blackening. 

“You make it sound so easy.” A drawl from your mouth as the whispers begin. The haunting demon who plagued your every thought, the despair that grew on your tongue. 

“Focus.” His voice cut through, pushing you back against the far wall, “And stay here.” His sword gripped in his hand. “Do not interfere.” He turned his back to you, the shadows shifting on the ground as the Hym exposed itself. The tall spectre’s horns brushing the top of the cave. Red eyes glowing in the pitch black. 

Elder spilled softly from your mouth, his sword turning in his hand, before striking the beast. Your vision blurred, knees sinking into the floor as it flooded your airways, burning down your throat. 

“Again!” a yell. A rod against your back, you straighten. Your training, so long ago now. Tissaia. The old mage taught you well. Raised you practically in the cobwebs of her home. The place that birthed every proper mage of your lifetime. The chaos that spilled from your fingertips, the fire burning in your belly, stoked by her hand. “You’re better than this.” Her beauty matched only by her venom. Her bite, fierce and lethal. “Do better.” 

You flourished under her through perseverance and determination. These private lessons you’d suffered through long before you were brought into the circle, years before you would ascend, years before your time in court. 

“Focus!” Was that her voice or… your vision snaps back to the present, Geralt damp with sweat, blood cascading down his arm you find yourself panting on the ground. His silver sword slashes across the demon’s belly. A high pitched whine. You could feel the edges blur again, ebbing and flowing, taking your consciousness. 

A boy birthed in the asylum. A slight deformation. You hushed him quietly as you robbed him in the night. Villain. That’s what you were and what you’d come to be. This boy wouldn’t survive. A slim chance with the ailments he was born with. He would soon be ripped from this world regardless, that’s how you reasoned in choosing your prey. Your last ingredient for a spell you shouldn’t be casting. 

You’ll do this, and then it will take you. That blissful Hym. It will give you the final push into cowardice. The push you would need to finally be rid of this place. This useless mage you’d become. His belly was round, so were his cheeks, his legs kicked in the cold air of the cave as he wailed. 

Elder words spill from your mouth as you raise the blade into the air. Striking true between the third and fourth rib. A wheeze and he’s gone. 

You found yourself gasping for air. Screaming as the wind picked up, a strong force over your mouth and chest. You felt trapped, cold stone against your back. It clears, your vision focusing in the dark. Whimpering against Geralt’s hand, “You’re fine.” Gruff words of comfort. “It’s gone, you’re free.” You catch your breath against him, pinned down by his arms in your anguish. What had you done?

You wail. Embarrassingly and out of code. You wail. He lets you struggle out of his grip, hands beating on his chest. “I told you to let it take me!” His jaw clenched, letting you sit up, backing yourself away from him and pressing as far into the wall as you could possibly be. “I told you--”

“I know what you said.” Voice level as always, even though there’s blood crusting on his arm and neck. “I saved you--”

“I should not have been saved.” He scoffs, sitting on his ass. 

“I thought that was the Hym talking.” He shrugged, steeling you with his eyes. You glare. 

“It was not.” He hummed, looking around the room, seeing the vials and herbs strewn about, glasses broken in battle. 

“I thought Mage’s brave.” He mused, “You’re a coward.” 

“I brought you here for a reason, Witcher.” Your head leaning back against the stone. 

“If you wanted to die, you wouldn’t have brought me here at all.” His brow furrows, in mock contemplation, “But why wouldn’t you let it just take you? Once you’re dead you’d no longer have to concern yourself with a Hym anyway. It doesn’t torment the dead. So that means…” You roll your eyes, avoiding his gaze. “You care enough about the people here, as much as your cold dead heart could, to save them from the same fate…. How noble of you.”

“Shut up.” His smirk, you let a heavy breath, eyes dry and itchy from crying, “I still killed a child.” The smirk drops, and he sighs as well. You were sure your womb would be aching if you had one. 

“The child,” He starts, “Wouldn’t have survived either way?”

“It might have if--” You shake your head, rubbing your eyes with your hands. 

“You wouldn’t have chosen a child not destined to die.” A glare, your glare. 

“You don’t know me.” You spit, pushing yourself up from the floor. He follows suit, standing across from you. 

“You’re right, I don’t.” A step closer. “But I’ve known Mages like you.” Another step. “And Mages tend to have a soft spot for children.” You could feel anger bubbling up in your chest,

“I’ve never wanted a child,” You bite.

“Regardless of that you no longer have the choice.” His canines were sharp up close. “And that kills you.” 

“If only.” He scoffs, close enough to taste his breath. You remember the rumors about Witchers, the rumors you knew to be true. How they were formed. “You know,” his head leaned down, forehead brushing yours. “I’m sorry for what they’ve done to you.” A stab into his chest, drowning out in a primal need. The comment ignored as he smashed his lips with yours, tangling his fingers into your hair. His teeth were sharp against your bottom lip. You beat him back with your fists, blood smeared on your bottom lip, his pupils blown wide. “Cad.” You spit, a grin, and you meet again. 

The stones rough against your back as you submit to him, his palms wrapped around your wrists and pinning you to the floor, a rough thrust and a gasp from first contact. Those eyes, black around the edges still, boring into your very soul as his hips meet yours in a brutal pace, splitting you into eye rolling pleasure. 

The friction of primal need. A burning of adrenaline in your veins. His hands release yours, sitting back on his haunches he grips your hips tightly. Your own hips rocking to meet him on their own accord, chasing the pleasure you so desperately sought. The slip you’d been wearing, torn on the sides from hasty tugging, he leaned over lavishing a nipple into his mouth, your fingers drifting between the two of you to bring yourself over, breath being caught in your throat, face red with exertion you push him over, his back meeting the stone floor where you straddle his hips. 

You slip yourself down his length, legs still shaking in orgasm and press your hands to his chest, rocking yourself, grinding your oversensitive clit against the course hairs at the base of his cock. His head hits the ground, hands bruising your hips as you work both him and yourself to a release. Head tossed back, sweat dripping down your spine. He spills himself inside you while you work yourself through your own aftershocks. Panting and suddenly extremely tired. Drained, you collapse next to him, his seed dripping down your thigh. 

“Collect your coin,” You pant, “And be gone before I wake.” You could see from the corner of your eye, his head turning towards yours. A pause, your breath catching. You felt bare, naked before this man. The forgetfulness of lust crusting on your leg. You needed him gone, if only to drown your sorrows once more before moving on. You see his mouth open, then close, deciding against whatever he was originally going to say. A moment of quiet. 

“As you wish.”


	2. beguiled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it’s been decades since you’ve last employed the witcher to help you dispatch of a spectre. you seek him out for him to help you with one more task and jealousy rears its ugly head.

The room smelled of mead. Sweet and sticky. Viciously spread through the bodies until they were dripping with it. Words cooed into ears in dark corners, a hand drifting up a skirt, picking at the laces of a dress. A brawl in the middle of the room over something trivial. A misplaced footstep. A bump of a shoulder, who knows. It was not a party unless someone had a broken bone by the end. It was not a party unless at the end someone was in critical condition.

The Queen sat proudly, poised and sure, nary a hair out of place. Sipping merrily but keeping her wits. Her eyes tracing the shapes of the walls, banisters, chiseled marble. Drifting out among her subjects, her warriors, to keep herself aware of what was going on below her pedestal. Looking down at the merry drunken fighters and the pretty little maids they set their eyes on.

As much as every kingdom felt like they were different, superior, they were all the same. Cheating Kings, spoiled wedding beds, hushed trysts in the night. Drinking yourself blind after an economic win, drinking yourself half to death after barely surviving battle. If the blade were not your end, surely it would be your poisoned liver.

Geralt had seen hundreds of these parties and surely, Geralt would see a hundred more. His cup never empty, a pleasant strum in his belly and his pocket full of coin. He was satisfied with his hunt, the unpleasant beasty falling to his sword, and the Queen paid him handsomely. The gift of a free meal and a warm bed to pass the night. Now he just needed a warm body to fill it.

A scent, familiar, stirred his loins. Lilac and gooseberries. The drift of it curling around him and tugging him away from viewing the brawl from his table. He could almost taste her, Yennefer, his nose picking up her scent. It tore him from the throne room, bathing himself in it as the crisp night air met his nostrils. Cup discarded he followed the trail, far into the hedge maze before him. The twisting and turning leading him towards her. Bringing him closer and closer to the center of the maze. To the small pond and bench, a large tree cloaked in the darkness of the night. The source of the scent directly below, but it was not Yennefer.

It was you.

A cheeky grin on your face as he tried to not show his surprise. Jaw set tight. Fists clenched in a subdued anger.

“Witcher.” You grin.

“What are you doing here?” You tug your bottom lip between your teeth, gazing around at the night lilies, the pond still and silent.

“The question dear butcher,” You muse, “Is what do I want?”

“You tricked me.” A statement.

“Your affection for Yenn tricked you,” You scoff, standing, “It just helped me bring you out here,” The castle behind him still standing, lights from the throne room casting shadows on the grass. “If I knew you had such an affection for her previously,” The last time you’d met, when he ripped the Hym’s claws from your back, “I might not have gone so easily on you.” His mind flipping back decades to the feeling of his back digging into the stone floor. He would be lying if it did not cause his dick to twitch in his trousers.

“What is it that you want Mage?” He was annoyed, you could tell that very well, but he could have just left so it is something.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you last…” Stepping towards him, hands on your hips, you peer up into his face almost flush with his chest, “How would you like to make a bit of coin? I have a proposition for you.” A heated glare, it stirs in your loins and sets your belly on fire. The scent of lilacs and gooseberries evaporating from the air.

“What do you want?” It was a bite and you place your hand on his chest, letting it drift up to hold the side his neck, pressing your breasts against him. Close.

“I need you to kill a little beasty for me,” A doe eyed look, your thumb coming to brush his bottom lip, “How skilled are you at alchemy?”

Very skilled it seems. Those little black vials of swallow sat in a satchel on his hip. Something tied to Roach’s saddle quite tightly as he rode. You lead on your own horse, taking him far away from the city and deep into the dark wood surrounding it. The mare’s steady hoof beats sync, and that is the sound between you. You could feel those amber eyes boring into the back of your head, you had not half a mind to wonder what went on in his. Good fortune brought him back to you, good fortune or that shiny gold coin you had kept for decades now.

His grace and mercy.

You turn to look at him, meeting his eye, “What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?” You ask, “Daydreaming about someone else?” You did not expect an answer, and he did not give one. “You know, she told me about the wish.” The steady beat of hooves. “The wish you’d always find your way back to one another.” It felt bitter on your tongue. “And you made that decision after one meeting?” Bitter and sour, a bubbling in your belly. “I should be bereft that you hadn’t the same fondness of me, but then again she’s a bit more attainable. Powerful. It is attractive really. I could understand… if I wanted to.”

“All mages are powerful.” His low timbre, it sends a shiver down your spine.

“I’m sure her Elven blood helps her none.” You muse. A day’s journey it had been. A small village looms in the distance. “We should make camp.” As the sun begins to set. “I’m getting hungry.” By the river you set a fire, Geralt hunting game.

“So why do you need me to kill a drowner?” He asked, dropping a bundle of rabbits by the fire. “What do you need it for?” You furrow your brow, standing from your crouched position digging through your bag,

“I’m not paying you to ask questions Witcher.” He rolls his eyes, sitting heavily on an overturned tree, pulling the game into his lap to skin and prepare to cook. You shrug your coat back on, sitting across from him. The sound of wood crackling, he set the rabbit up on a makeshift spit.

“What happened with the King?” Of course, he would ask. The King whose son was now on the throne, the curse from the Hym gone from the town, but not forgotten. You were sure he heard tales of his own bravery there. Geralt of Rivia, whether it was fame or infamy was anyone’s guess, but if he did their dirty work for them, he could stay.

“He died thankfully,” You sigh, “His stupid little heart gave out… his son is on the throne now.” Geralt looks across at you, a strange look on his face. “You know, for a Witcher who is supposed to be above emotion you certainly show a lot of it on your face… What?”

He shakes his head, looking back onto the roasting rabbits before saying, “For a moment I wondered how you felt about it, if you felt anything for it anymore.” The guilt. To tell the truth it comes and goes, but you say to him,

“It’s long forgotten.” Which you are sure he does not buy it, but he drops it none the less. “When was the last time you’ve seen her? Yenn?” He shifts in his seat,

“Eight years now.” You hum.

“She’s ever the flighty bird.” An unimpressed stare.

“As if you’re any different.” He jests. You shake your head, sighing contently,

“I never said I wasn’t.” He looks at you for a moment more, debating something in his head before deciding against it. The dinner eaten in silence, you lay under the stars swathed in your coat, the fire burning into embers beside you.

“You were going to leave anyway.” A whisper. “What difference did it make that I told you to leave instead?” Silence. You could hear the crickets in the distance, singing for their night.

“Go to sleep.”

…

You dipped your toes into the river, the day was warm, you had been sweating in your dress. The outer heavy layers discarded as Geralt walked the length of the river you watched him from the corner of your eye as his amber orbs searched its depths. The Drowner was nearby, that you knew. A ghoulish figure that preyed on pretty milkmaids that were bathing in the river or pulled merchants from a low hanging bridge.

They are necrophages. They drown you and then devour your corpse. And you had brought your lovely Witcher to a nest. The pesky things were severely damaging your trading routes. A little business you had cultivated for yourself, your home being not too far from here, you sold the thing that people wanted the most, a mage’s services.

Your toes in the cold water would hopefully bring them to the surface, pull one out of hiding. You dared to venture deeper, shifting your skirt higher on your hips.

“Stay. There.” He says, eyes moving over the deep depths of the lake. “You always seem to have a death wish.” He murmurs.

“None more so than you,” You muse, kicking your foot in the water. “I’m sure if I were to be swept under, you’d valiantly save me… another song for your little bard to come up with. A tale of a poor maiden and the grizzled Witcher who saved her from a watery grave.” You watched your toes wiggle against the dirt of the lake floor. “Saving her from being eaten by a drowner, so thankful that she rode your cock until morning.” You laugh. But he paused. Settled on one part of the lake’s edge.

“Get out of the water.” Spoken in a panic. You had been in the water to your knees, amusement lost as his eyes met yours, fear. For you. You quickly tread to the edge, feet meeting the harsh rock bed of the lake as you tripped out into the mud, his arm pulling you away fully.

A head bobbed to the surface. It was an ugly thing, scaly and green. A sharp fin sprouted from its back with three spikes and devilishly long talons stretching from its long fingers. You had never seen one alive before, it took your breath away. As one head bobbed, two more sprouted behind him. Three.

“It seems as though the whole nest is hungry.” You tug your bottom lip between your teeth, walking backwards to grab your own sword. Geralt was brave and mighty but a nest of drowners at once was not going to be an easy feat.

“Stay behind me.” The foul creatures trekking through the muck towards the two of you, spreading area attempting to circle. You grip the handle of your sword, the creatures coming close. A swipe of their claws at Geralt’s belly. One moving to the side to encapsulate you. You press your back to his, hand thrusting forward and sending the two beasts on your side back before swinging with your sword and severing its arm from its shoulder. A gooey black blood pouring out. Thick and viscous.

You could hear the smooth movement from behind you, Geralt’s silver sword cutting through the air with speed and precision. Two bodies lay at his feet, one at yours. There is four more. Your hand moves out again, pushing the four back as Geralt lifts his sword and buries it into another, he pushes you out of the way of one’s claws and buries his sword in its belly, grunting and swinging again. 

You huff as the last body falls, gazing over at Geralt. “You’ve got a cut.” You pant, wiping sweat from your brow.

“Very astute of you.” He glares, rinsing his sword off in the lake.

“It’s about to get cold.” You walk over to your horse, grabbing your boots off the ground, “Take their heads and let’s go.” You mount. He looks at you incredulously.

“Go where?” 

“To my home.”

…

It was simple, mostly brick, one story home. It was not what Geralt was expecting. A garden overflowing with herbs, and a cat out front, lapping water from a dish. He dropped the heads in the front garden, he’d scrape their brain matter out later to make his swallow, something he’s sure you’d be able to help him with seeing as you had all the other ingredients already growing beside your house.

“Take your boots off when you come in.” You peer at him over your shoulder. “I’ll make a bath.”

The tub was steaming as he submerged himself into it. Scalding on his skin and burning on his healing cut as he watched you from across the room, stripped down to your shift. Comfortable enough in front of him for that, or maybe you just did not care.

“Have you always wanted to live alone?” He asked, “Is that why you’re all the way out here?” Truthfully, you did live in the middle of nowhere, but living alone, that was just,

“A side effect from not being able to trust anyone.” You shrug, pulling at the laces of your shift, he gazed at the side of your breast revealed, “A mage’s life is funny, being needed by everyone yet being important to no one.” He watched as you dropped the shift entirely, stepping towards the large basin to sink yourself in across from him. “But it seems like Yenn will escape that life too,” A green monster behind your eyes, “She’s important to you.”

“The djin.” He begins, “I don’t know why that was my last wish… I just…”

“You felt like she was your destiny.” A sad smile on your lips as you leaned over and grabbed the bar of soap beside the basin. “In an instant.” It was almost cruel. But he had to wonder,

“Why are you so jealous of her?” He watched you soap up one leg. “You’re just as beautiful, just as intelligent…”

“But alone.” He watches you dip your leg back under the water, switching to the other, “It wasn’t my choice to become a mage, but it was hers. She wanted this power. She wanted to ascend.”

“And you didn’t?” He watches your head loll to the side, resting your cheek on the side of the basin.

“I thought I did once,” His leg brushes against yours, your feet going into his lap, his hands caressing your calves. “But I thought once I ascended people would have to listen to me, that men would have to listen to me, but I just became… a toy. A pretty toy for men to play with.” You rub your foot on his thigh. “I don’t hate Yenn.” You admit, “She’s a good friend.”

“But you want what she has?” You give him a soft glare.

“Don’t get cocksure. I want someone to think I’m important to them,” You admit, “Doesn’t have to be you.” But you want it to be. A strange affection you had borne for him. It was too much, too open. Too raw. He tugged on your legs, pulling you through the water and to his lap, pressing his lips against yours. The meeting electric, hardening your nipples against his chest, his wet fingers burying themselves in your hair while his mouth consumed you. A soft moan like a prayer on his lips.

Your hand drifts down between you, stroking his growing length, hardening him under your gentle assault. His hand groping your ass, grinding your clit against his pubic bone. The rhythm simple, yet effective, his tongue parting your lips as you cum against him, his hand holding your mouth to his while you squirm. His cock found your entrance and bracing his feet against the bottom of the tub he presses himself into you. That burning stretch you remember making your eyes roll.

The water sloshes over the side of the basin as your hips meet, Geralt grunts as you roll your hips to meet his, your moans swallowed by his tongue. You’re brought over once more, his hand steadying your hips to grind your clit on his pubic bone, he lets you throw your head back, letting a loud moan rip from your throat as your legs begin to shake. He picks up a brutal pace, tugging on your hair and bringing your mouth back to his as you feel him release inside of you.

“Don’t tell me to leave,” He says, “Just don’t tell me to leave.” It is spoken into the column of your throat as he works his way through the aftershocks. It was too intimate. You back away. He is lost you. You step from the tub, leaving him in the grey water.

He watches you dry yourself and refuse to meet his eye. He sighs heavily, leaning his head back against the basin.

“You wouldn’t be so alone if you didn’t push everyone away.” It spills from his mouth before he could stop it. You glare at him; he could see your eyes grow wet. Fuck.

“It wouldn’t matter either way.” You wrap the dressing gown around your body, turning your back to him. He sees you look at a coin on your vanity and watches as you run your fingers across the surface. You sigh, “You know when I was a girl,” A harsh swallow, “You saved my village from a beast I hadn’t known existed.” You picked up the coin and turned to him, walking over to the basin where he stood from the water, your eyes locked with his. “Before you left, I placed myself beside your horse, trying to get a glimpse of an actual real-life Witcher.” He watched you move the coin between your fingers. “You gave me this, I was filthy and starving, and you gave me this coin.” You held it between your thumb and pointer finger, “And I’ve used it to call upon you twice now, but you can take it with the rest of your coin and those drowner heads as payment for relieving me of another problem and you can leave right now.”

“Y/N…” You drop the coin into the tub, it sinks down to his feet and he watches you crawl into your bed, facing away from him.

“Leave.”


	3. bewildered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you’d wanted nothing to do with him, and he respected that. it was deserved. but something called him to you. and he needs to bring you home.

Spring was coming. The snow finally melting, but the ground just beginning to thaw. Pretty soon Geralt would be able to sleep outside without being uncomfortable. He’d be able to get more done. Make more money. Leave Kaer Morhen for longer than a week at a time.

Truth be told he didn’t think he would make this place his home. The stone walls held bad memory. This was the place his mother had left him. Where he took his trials. Where he became the monster that he was today. But, Vesemir reasoned with him, free lodgings are better than paying for somewhere to stay all winter. And being as though they were the last of the Witchers, this property was theirs after all.

It was also harder to move around now that he had Ciri. The girl was smart, but naïve. Talented, but impulsive. This home would give her stability for training. Something she dreaded.

“I don’t understand why I have to learn all of this.” She would whine, the old tomes and books, memorized by Geralt in his youth, now to be memorized by her.

“You won’t succeed in fighting monsters if you don’t know everything about the monster.” Vesemir would shake his head at her when he wasn’t falling asleep in his chair.

Ciri would use those moments to sneak off, train combatively like Geralt had been teaching her. Running the obstacle course that he’d built for her. She loved doing that. The book learning not so much.

It was one of those days, Vesemir found fast asleep that he found Ciri outside practicing with a dummy in the courtyard. Her form was improving, but still sloppy. Her footwork needed more practice and she needed to build more muscle in her arms to properly wield the sword, but she was improving and that was a good sign.

“Keep your core tight.” He called, arms crossed and standing a comfortable distance behind her. “Focus, precise movements.” She was agile, having learned to flip and maneuver her way around even if her footwork was often a misstep. She’ll get there. “Steady.”

The trees were barren and air crisp. Watching Ciri practice, focused. The wind picked up, a whisper in the air.

Something was wrong.

Geralt didn’t know what it was, but he could sense it. A shift. A change. Something was very, very wrong. His fingers reached into his pocket, brushing against the metal coin there reassuringly. Thumbing it between his pointer a forefinger.

When the ground thaws. He’ll soothe his conscience.

…

He found himself outside of your home. For the first time in a long time. It looks less taken care of, vines crawling up the sides imbedding themselves in the walls. The garden was dry, dead plants, overgrown weeds. The small little pond you’d made for yourself, the fish dead, a layer of scum over top.

The door was open and half of its hinge.

He stepped through the familiar home. Room to room. Cobwebs and dust over every surface, bottles and jars smashed or dark and their contents sour. You obviously hadn’t been here for a very long time, but it looked as though you’d left on your own accord. Your clothes and jewelry were gone. The tiny baubles he’d noticed on your vanity gone as well. But how long have you been gone? And where were you now?

He travelled on. Different towns, villages. Beast after beast, listlessly hoping that the trail of bed crumbs would be you leading him back. The heavy coin in his pocket would put a shadow on that thought. You gave him the thing you used to bring him to you before. He flipped it through his fingers, looking at the shiny metal sides, polished from the constant worrying.

He was sore, soaking in a bath and looking at it. The cuts on his arms and legs burning from the heat, but he can’t focus on that. He’s focused on this coin.

He couldn’t remember the story you told him. You having been just a girl and him handing this coin to you. He’d probably been a new Witcher then. Fresh from his trails, out on his first couple hunts, just having left the nest. He couldn’t pull the memory from his mind. It was so long ago now.

He could feel the magic in it, infused in every little bit of this metal. Your magic. It had given him solace, late nights, long bouts of travel, he rubbed it and it soothed him, pacifying his subdued emotions enough for him to focus. It was when he thought of this that he realized,

He knew how to find you.

The village wasn’t far off from where your old home had been, and he’d felt foolish for it. Small and secluded. Tiny little houses in sporadic distances from the main square. The square bustling with life, vendors selling vegetables and grain from their farm. Flowers and metal trinkets from the blacksmith, behind him an array of weapons and household wares.

He wasn’t welcome here and he could feel it as soon as he stepped into the small village. Their looks odd, their wallets clutched in to quell their nerves. But he paid them no mind. He could see you, just across the way. Thin white linen dress, hair down and soft, holding a woven basket you were slowly filling with vegetables. He grew closer as you switched over to the little flower cart, smiling and charming, talking to the male vendor.

His cheeks red with rosacea and belly round he seemed keen on you. You were laughing at a joke, head thrown back. He’d never seen you so carefree before, so happy. You had baby’s breath in your hair and a rose to your cheeks. He almost stepped away, left entirely. Like maybe getting rid of him was the best thing you’d ever done for yourself.

But it’s gone from his mind when you meet his gaze, your eyes bringing him in, a soft smile on your lips. He stops before you and you turn to him,

“Y/N…” Your brow furrows, lips pulling into a frown.

“I’m sorry, sir.” You step back from him, “But do I know you?” This feeling, he’d only felt it once before, what feels like a lifetime ago now. The abandonment of it. You look genuinely confused. He shakes his head,

“No, I’m sorry…” He sighs, “I’m—”

“Witcher.” A terse voice, men pulling up to his left. “You’re going to have to come with us.” His eyes stay on you as you look upon the men, the tug of your bottom lip between your teeth. You give him a strange look and walk away, leaving the square, and headed to where he would assume your home was.

He turned to the men, their leader jerking his head toward the pub. So it wasn’t a beating, but a job proposition.

“Do you know her?” One of the men asked him, “You seemed pretty keen.” His teeth were yellowed, skin black with dirt. Geralt sipped on his ale, answering, focused in on the man who just dropped down in front of him. “I bet she tastes of honey.” Geralt’s jaw set, a glare shot at the man who sunk into his seat, Cheshire grin dropping.

“Something has been in my fields every night.” He says, “I’d pray you a pretty penny so it would stop hawking my grain.” Missing grain. Geralt was ever the public servant.

How could you forget him? Had you done this to yourself? Erased your mind of him? Or had someone else done this to you? Was your memory lost forever or easily retrieved? He sighs, trying to focus on the task at hand, but he can’t. Should he even try to bring your memory back?

A shift in the night, he could hear it. Noise from the silo. His hand on the hilt of his sword. He walked around to the other side, the moonlight illuminating the open door. He sighs, the grain thief isn’t a hungry beast, but someone from the village. He sheathes his sword, coming around the corner and seeing a dark cloaked figure hunched over and shoving grain into a burlap sack by their feet. He sighs, the noise halting the figure’s movements.

“The man who owns this land isn’t too happy that you’ve been stealing his grain.” The figure moves, turning to face him, cloak hood falling from their face.

It’s you.

“I’m sure.” You huff, “He seems perfectly happy to let those on the outer banks starve though, maybe you should talk to him about that.” He was stunned by you. You looked different, fresher, healthier. You’d been eating more, getting more sun and in the moonlight, he felt struck by you in a way he couldn’t have expected. You looked at him for a moment before tying the burlap sack shut, “You seem to know me… Witcher.” Cheeky. That hadn’t changed.

“You remind me of someone I once knew.” He watched you abandon the sack, stepping towards him.

“Was she beautiful?” You muse, a cheeky grin. A light in your eyes he hadn’t ever seen.

“Absolutely enchanting.” He breathed, missing your heat when you take a step back.

“So you wouldn’t mind carrying this grain for me then?” You laugh at the look on his face, but he finds himself shouldering it and following you down the hill and into the woods.

An enchantress. That’s what you’d always been. A mage, a king’s mage, a mage for the people, no. You were an enchantress and you belonged here. Flitting about in the trees covered with moss and barefoot leading him to a small home. The first stop of many to portion out enough grain for the family to have bread.

You’re their fairy godmother. A blessing. He watches the mother hold you and offer you animal fat from their last hunt, something you decline, but appreciate, nonetheless. He follows you house to dilapidated house, the poor families inside ever so grateful for the blessing of your stolen grain. You mock him for giving up his fealty so easily.

“I should be jealous of this girl.” You jest. “She must get whatever she wants from you.” He huffs,

“I haven’t seen her in a while.” He admits, watching you balance on a log across a small stream, heading back towards town and leading him home.

“You seem smitten,” You jump from the log, landing on your feet and turning to him, watching him cross, “Why haven’t you seen her?” Sorrow burrowed into his chest as he watches you continue onward, the beautiful dress you’d been wearing earlier now mud dipped and you seem so without care.

“I said something in anger,” He sighs, “Years ago, I fear she doesn’t want to see me again.” The edge of the town grows closer and you take him to the left, walking the length around it.

“Did you apologize?” You ask, the stone streets meeting your feet once more. He follows you through the winding road, house pushed further back towards the wood. A miniature version of the home he’d found abandoned, complete with a little pond out front.

“I hadn’t the chance.” You look at him strangely.

“Hadn’t the chance or wouldn’t take it?”

The home is much cozier than your old one. A single room with a fireplace on the far right wall, your bed on the far left. A small table and chair, kitchen area with dried herbs hanging over top of the small butcher’s block counter that had vegetable scraps from the dinner you must’ve eaten before going out to steal and distribute grain.

“Mason, the man who owns that land will surely be wanting a head brought to him.” He watches you take a cloth and wash your feet. You look up at him from beneath your lashes. “Are you going to turn me in?”

He shakes his head, “No.” You shrug, tossing the rag into your basket of laundry.

“Then you better get hunting.” But he didn’t want to leave you. You seemed so happy here, so content, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t leave you like this,

“Do you really not remember me?” He asked, gruff and serious. You look at him strangely,

“What are you talking about?” You ask. “I’ve just met you today.” He shakes his head,

“No, I met you for the first time nearly fifty years ago.” Your brow furrows and you shake your head.

“I’m not even fifty years old…” You step back from him, “I think you should leave.”

“I’m not leaving.” He states, “You’re a mage, you know magic, you did this to yourself?” Why couldn’t he just walk away? Why did he need to tear you from this so badly? You shake your head, hand coming up to hold the side of it. “You erased your memory?”

He could see your eyes moving behind your closed lids. Searching. “You need to leave.”

“I need to take you back to Vesemir, he’ll know how to help you.” Your eyes opened, red and weepy, a drop of blood drips from your nose and you faint.

Geralt rushes to catch your dropping body, saving your skull from clipping into the kitchen bench. He’d have to take you to Kaer Morhen, Vesemir would be able to help him break this spell.

…

This bed was much richer than your own. Comfortable to the point you could sink into it almost to the floor. You’d never felt anything so rich in your life. Your body feels like lead, hard to move, but then again you didn’t really want to. You were so comfortable. Laying on your belly, a hand on your back playing with the ends of your hair, braiding and then taking it out, then re-braiding.

You hum, vision clearing, looking at the drawn curtains. A crackling fireplace in the corner makes the cool summer night a little too warm.

It was a little girl, humming behind you and braiding your hair. Her hair stark white, skin tanned and ruddy from playing in the summer sun, scratches on her cheeks and you’d later notice on her knuckles and fingers.

“Ciri.” A harsh whisper. “Leave her be.” The voice familiar and a deep growl. A quiet huff of annoyance and the bed shifts you can hear her step towards Geralt.

“I’m helping her wake up.” She says in a terse voice.

“She needs to rest.” His annoyed reply. The heavy door behind him closes and you slowly roll over to look at him. He’s staring at the ground, a strange expression on his face.

“I’m surprised you came looking for me.” You mumble into the sheets. His eyes snapping to yours.

“You erased your memory.” A statement. A fact. You hum, stretching your sore limbs. “Take it easy, you’re not going to have all your faculties yet.”

“You weren’t supposed to go looking for me.”

“Why not?” He asked. “I didn’t mean what I said and you know it.” You sink back into the sheets, unable to fully move.

“Is this your home?” You ask. He steps closer, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

“I lived here when I was a boy.” He shrugs, “This is where they trained us.” He hears your sharp intake of breath. “It’s just us here, Ciri, Vesemir, and me.”

“Not Yenn?” He glares at you.

“She’s never been here.” You roll onto your back, looking up at the canopy above you. “Why did you erase your memory?” He watches you for a moment, silent and unanswering.

“It made it hurt less.” You admit, “I didn’t want to live that life anymore.” You look at him, his brow pulled in concern.

“I’m sorry for what I said.” He sighs, “I shouldn’t have—”

“But you’re right.” You scoff, “Both times I pushed you away… the last time you wanted to stay…”

“But it wouldn’t have been right of me to do that…” He sighs, “I wasn’t in a good place to give you what you wanted.”

“Are you ever?” You sit up against the headboard, wiggling your toes to regain feeling.

“No…” He looks at you quietly for a moment, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“Are you ever going to be happy?” He asks, you look at him for a moment. The defeat in his voice.

“Why does it matter to you? Is this your guilt?” You look around the room, a large basin to bathe in, the fireplace growing close to embers, a desk messy with papers, but what would he even need to write?

“My guilt?” Your eyes roll back to his.

“That fuels you to need to make sure I’m happy. Which didn’t stop you from bringing my memory back.” A spell, crudely done on yourself. A nice ten or fifteen years, you’d remember. But you’d get to live life away from it for a while, and you did. “So guilt and selfishness then? Guilt needing to make sure I’m happy but selfish enough to make sure I can’t be happy without you? Why?” You wanted him to say it. This strange relationship the two of you had, if you could even call it a relationship.

This was the third time you’d seen him in nearly fifty years.

“What is this?” You ask him, “Why can’t you let me go?”

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, stepping from the bed, “I don’t know.” Rubbing his eyes. His fingers fumble with something in his pocket, “You’re just so…”

“So…? What?” His golden eyes they’re so piercing. They make a shiver go down your spine.

“Bewitching.” He steps to the edge of the bed and you meet him there, shifting shakily to your knees. His fingers find the ends of your hair, still partially braided from Ciri. “I’m selfish enough to want you here.” He says, “With me.”

You settle back on your heels, head tilted back looking up at his face. “You’re soft.” He rolls his eyes, knowing the subject was far too intimate for you, something to be broached later, maybe once he plies you with mead maybe soaking bath. “I’m hungry.”

…

Geralt watched from under the stone archway. Ciri was practicing, you are standing a safe distance behind her, observing. Ciri seemed infatuated with you, she wanted to show you everything she learned, everything she knew. You helped her focus, Ciri able to sit longer in her studies, explain things to you about different creatures that you pretended not to know.

You braided her hair out of her face and she chattered to you at mealtimes.

“The girl wants a Mother.” Vesemir said to him as they both watched you instruct her to keep her back straight,

“Good posture helps with combat.” You would tell her. Ciri would roll her shoulders back, her footwork improving. Less sloppy.

Your eyes would meet his every once in a while, a knowing smirk on your face before he steps out to join the two of you and you make your exit with a trail of fingers against his back.

“The trial of the grasses.” You whisper by candlelight, facing him in the bed you’d been sharing, your fingers tracing the shape of his cheekbones, “Barbaric, and cruel… it’s fortunate that no one should have to go through that ever again.” Your thumb pressed between his tense brow.

“Ciri will never have to go through that.” She’s powerful, the girl.

“She won’t.” You wrap yourself in further, legs curling up under your nightdress. “She’s strong.”

“She is.”

“I would have never pictured you as a father.” He huffs, rolling onto his back.

“Neither would I.” You hum, looking at his profile.

“She wants to make you proud.” His eyes move to yours. “I have a feeling that she already does.”

“You can’t leave her.” He says, “You’d break her heart.” Your fingers scratch against the sheets between you.

“I can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” Propped up on his elbow, body half hovering over yours. “Make this your home, come and go as I do,” His fingers disappearing in your strands, “Just always come back.” A gentle tug, pulling your face to meet his.

It was soft. Unlike previous kisses. The passion bubbling under your skin, the emptiness you’d felt from the absence of him being drowned by his mouth. The blunt fingernails digging into your spine as you lay above him, kissing.

Those same fingers bunching the skirt of your nightdress up your thighs as you straddle his hips. The hard length of him pressing against you. You gently rock your hips against his, grinding yourself on him, softly moaning into his mouth. He gently rolls you over, pressing your back against the sheets and kissing his way down your neck and to the tops of your breasts, palming them, before sinking his hands under your nightdress and slipping your undergarments down and off. The thin gown slipping off your shoulders to lay open.

His lips meet your belly, tracing their way down, down, to press against your hips, large rough palms tracing down your legs to grip your thighs and part them for his gentle assault. Those amber eyes meet yours, tongue dipping between your thighs. His arms encircle your hips, hands gripping them tightly, letting you rock against his face.

The grind and friction on his tongue making your legs shake. His grunting and moaning, tongue tracing expertly placed circles on your clit. Your fingers unravel his hair, fingernails scratching at his scalp as your back arches in climax. Whining with his continued licks, wet tongue overstimulating your sensitive flesh. He lays a kiss on your mons, trailing his lips back up your body to capture your mouth, the sweet tang of you shared between you both.

You pull at his shirt and he allows you to lift it from his body, tossed carelessly to the side, before helping you with his trousers. His skin bare above you, touching yours in comfort. He wraps himself around you, warm and strong. His heavy cock resting on your belly as his lips meet yours again and again.

Your fingers in his hair, he adjusts his hips, the tip of him pressing against your entrance before you feel that familiar burn and stretch, whimpering into his mouth as he breeches you. He’s on his elbows on top of you, chest to chest, connected. Intimate. His face pulls away from yours as he begins to slowly thrust, and as your eyes drift closed, he says,

“Don’t look away from me,” a plea or a demand, you couldn’t be sure, but when you opened your eyes and looked into his it felt so raw, so real. His hips meeting yours in a steady smooth pace. This wasn’t like before. The hurried and animalistic chase towards climax. The rushed fuck you’d gotten from him twice before. This was far more intimate, far closer, far too exposed. “Don’t look away.”

You could feel your eyes watering, body trembling as he ground himself against the most sensitive spot inside you, “I can’t.” You whimper his fingers intertwined with yours, pressing them down into the bed.

“Don’t run from me.” A whisper on your lips as the tears began to run down your face, dripping down your temples and into your hair, “Stop running from me.” He lays a soft kiss to your lips. You were getting close, so close.

Your hands tightened, squeezing his as you tumbled over, a blabbering mess of words leaving your throat, soothed by a searing kiss from him as his hips picked up a faster motion, chasing his own release now. It wasn’t long after that his hips stuttered against yours, his seed painting your womb, but his body staying close. He kissed you, again and again. Slow and soft.

“Tell me you’ll stay.” A whisper into your mouth, he was soft inside you, your legs still wrapped around his waist. His eyes searched yours, thumb coming down to wipe at the tears coming from your eyes.

“I’ll stay.”


End file.
